RJ (Richard Jefferson aka lLttle ie) is really bugs me alot about the defense on this team. Bonner is a limited defender (slow & nonathletic as well as physically not that strong he's actually smart enough to over come his physical limitations to an extent but with the minutes he gets defensive cheating and anticipation can't cover his weaknesses.) who can be improved by playing less so he can be more intense in his minutes. Blair is a limited defender, (slow, short and with moderately poor fundamentals as well as apparently a limited learning curve) but is decent against limited offensive talents, Its the guys that are well rounded that give him fits and he makes look like superstars. If the person can hit from 8 to 12 and is faster than him teammates can set them up time and again.
RJ on the other hand is a pretty good well rounded defensive player when he wants to be, he's fairly sharp intellectually, he's athletic enough that he can guard most any small forward in the league and a number of power forwards, sure the superstars will get theirs on him but he can at least make them work for it. For some reason though he has a very odd tendency to just check out of some games mentally when he is not being super involved. For other games he just never checks in. His defensive intensity seems for some weird reason tied to his offensive success/involvement, and he is a streaky shooter. Designing set plays for him to finish around the basket early in each half seems like a way to alleviate the issue but it really shouldn't be needed. He is a professional basketball player, and not one of the mental midget ones either. I just don't understand this.
I compare it to one of my friends in school who was seriously add if he was on Ritalin he was a very good outfielder, when he wasn't even in junior high and high school he would get lost playing in the grass, looking at clouds, or fans. I have to imagine the NBA would consider it a performance enhancing drug though and wouldn't even want to propose that it is ADD just that the symptoms of random checked-outness for no known reason seem similar.
I hope none of the Spurs younger players are picking up from him that it is acceptable as a professional to be obviously out of the game mentally at times.
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